


chasing after your restless heart

by nouiszouis



Series: Monthshots! [4]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Pining, larry - Freeform, zouis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:14:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nouiszouis/pseuds/nouiszouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>louis is pining over the curly-haired check out boy, so him and zayn create a plan to gain his interest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chasing after your restless heart

**Author's Note:**

> day 4 of monthshots!
> 
> i barely finished this in time so thanks to whoever controls time and fate and everything.
> 
> there might be errors since i haven't gotten the chance to properly look over it, but hopefully they'll be fixed asap.
> 
> title come from the song 'stars (hold on)' by youngblood hawke
> 
> (also, please put any prompts or kinks you want written in the comments; that'd be awesome!)

"Zayn, can I get some Ben & Jerry's?" Louis asks, stepping behind Zayn and draping his arms around his neck.

"You have two tubs at home that are half eaten already," Zayn sighs. He reaches a hand up to hold onto Louis' as they walk through the grocery market, trying to do some light and resourceful shopping.

"I know, but I want to try a new flavor. You can eat the other halves of mine, I don't really care," Louis tries, awkwardly holding onto Zayn still and trying not to trip as they move forward.

"Can't you just get the cheap kind?" Zayn asks as they get to the ice cream section.

"The cheap kind doesn't have flavors with brownies or cinnamon buns or cookie dough bits in them," Louis complains.

He assumes Zayn's silence is a sign of surrender so he let's go and opens the freezer door, grabbing one of the flavors he can't remember ever trying. Once he's places it in the small basket Zayn's holding, Louis grabs Zayn's face and kisses him on the cheek, laughing when the other boy groans and wipes it off.

"You're disgusting," Zayn grimaces. "You kiss like a dog, all slobbery and whatnot."

Louis feigns offense and slaps his shoulder. "I kiss like a gentleman, thank you very much. You should appreciate my small gifts of appreciation."

"Yeah, yeah, moving on. Did we get everything on the list?" Zayn turns around to face Louis and waits patiently while he thinks.

"Milk, tea, bread, cookie mix, three kinds of chips, frozen pizzas, a few boxes of macaroni, and ice cream," Louis lists before humming. "Yeah, I think we got everything!"

Zayn nods and they head to the front of the store to check out. There's only one lane open since the store closes in about twenty minutes, and there's luckily no one else in line.

The guy working the register is what stands out, though. Louis is instantly entranced, accidentally stepping on the back of Zayn's foot without even noticing.

This boy is tall and has curly brunette a hair pushed back with a headband; tattoos covering nearly all of the skin on his arms; and a bright smile on his face that seems extremely out of place for someone working at a market at eleven on a Saturday night.

"Ready to check out?" He asks when the two of them get close.

"This one's already been checking you out," Zayn says, jabbing his thumb back at Louis.

Louis slaps him hard in the bicep and tells him to fuck off while check out boy widens his eyes and blushes a bit before looking down. He doesn't seen weirded out by the fact that Louis's a guy, though, so there's something.

He stays quiet while he scans the items that Zayn sets on the conveyer belt and Louis thinks he catches him looking at him for a quick moment, but he can't be too sure. His brain's tunnel vision on what to do to Zayn for revenge.  

"Your total is twenty six oh five," the boy says with a considerably happy tone. It's surprising that he's not more flustered about the small incident a minute ago, but then again, he could easily have people hitting on him or commenting on his appearance all the time.

Louis and Zayn each take out an even amount of bills and hand them to the yet-to-be-named check out boy. He sorts them into the register and pulls out their change, printing a receipt and stuffing it into one of the two bags full of groceries.

"Have a wonderful night!" he says as Zayn grabs both of the bags and starts turning to walk away.

"You too, headband boy," Louis replies, not in a teasing or menacing way.

'Headband boy' smiles enough to where a dimple forms in his cheek and Louis wishes he could aw out loud without seeming extremely creepy. In the end, Zayn grabs his arm and pulls him out of the store without another word exchanged and Louis sulks the whole ride home.

-

The next morning, Louis wakes up to pancakes and eggs sitting on the kitchen counter for him. Zayn's already gone back to sleep on the couch after making it all because the _only_ reason he ever wakes up early is to make breakfast for Louis. (He doesn't trust Louis' argument that since he's twenty two now, he won't accidentally set the kitchen on fire again. It's reasonable not to believe the statement, though, considering it was only last year that Louis caused so much smoke that they had to stay at Zayn's boyfriend Liam's place for a few days to let the flat air out completely.)

He grabs the plate and sits on the very end of the couch where Zayn's feet are laying. All he has to do is pat the bottom of one of his feet to get him to curl up into a ball, creating free space to sit down.

There's never anything good on tv at nine on a Sunday morning and it's one of the things Louis hates most about having an early set internal alarm clock. Zayn gets to wake up to recent episodes of shows and classic movies while Louis gets stuck watching animal documentaries and little kid shows.

He sits eating his breakfast and once he finishes, he reaches over and pulls Zayn's blanket off to wrap around himself against the groaning and slapping thrown in his direction.

Inevitably, after about thirty minutes, his mind ends up trailing off to the check out boy from last night. All he wants to do is go up there and ask for his name and drag him to the movies to see some sappy love story and live happily ever after.

But he can't do that because he hasn't gained the boy's interest at all yet.

"Zayn, Zayn, Zayn, wake up," Louis calls out as he starts shaking the sleeping lump next to him.

The only response he gets is a hand waving around so he shakes harder, repeating Zayn's name until finally there's a loud grunt and he's awake.

"What do you fucking want," Zayn says with a gruff voice, and it sounds a lot more like a death threat than a question.

"How do I get that check out boy interested enough to go on a date with me?" He asks.

Zayn stays silent for a while as if he's either pondering over it or waiting for some other imaginary person to answer for him. When there's no voice answering the question, he speaks again.

"Why don't you just talk to him like a normal human being?" And that's a good suggestion, but Louis isn't sure it would work.

"I'm not a normal human being, though. I'm Louis Tomlinson, and I've got to make a name for myself, you know? I've got to hook him with an elaborate plan, something attention grabbing. Need to do something that no one else would think to do because I'm certain that there's lots of other people trying to get him too," Louis explains, getting more into this as he goes on about it. "You see, we need to get dimples to fall for cheekbones- dimples being him, cheekbones being me."

Zayn looks over at him with a blank stare. " _Or_ you could just talk to him."

"Did you hear nothing I said, Malik? God, you're no help at all," Louis huffs and slumps back into the couch.

"Alright fine, if you're really desperate enough for my help then I can help you come up with a plan, but I can't be held responsible for any embarrassment or backlash that occurs from anything you do," Zayn finally agrees.

With a crinkly eyed smile and a fredo kiss to Zayn, Louis officially launches what he'd like to call Project Dimples.

"That's a ridiculous name for this plan project thing," Zayn tells him as soon as he creates the title.

"Thank you for your input, Zayn, but quite frankly I couldn't give less of a fuck about what you think."

And after a long debate, Louis is _now_ officially launching Project 'Let's Do This Shit' (credits to Zayn Malik for the non-embarrassing name).

-

Louis goes back to the market a week later, at the same time they went last time. He figures it'd be his best shot since he doesn't know the boy's schedule, and hopefully there won't be anyone else there so he can grab his full attention.

The first plan is a bit of a long shot, but it'll tell where this guy's interests are exactly. Zayn came up with it a few days ago jokingly, but of course Louis got hooked on it and told him he's a genius.

Louis walks over to the surprisingly convenient condom section and starts looking closely at each label, trying to find the ones that he's looking for. He's never had to buy these himself since Zayn always has an extra box under the bathroom sink, so he's a bit lost on where to look.

Eventually, after scanning the section for a few minutes, he finds a package of XL ones and grabs them figuring the XXL might be a bit of an unrealistic long shot. He holds them in his hand and strolls over to the check out counter where the boy is standing, leaning against the counter part and drumming his fingers on his leg.

Louis comes up and slams the box down, causing the boy to snap his head over and then turn fully around. Now that he's facing him, Louis can see a name tag pinned to his green apron that wasn't there last week.

**_HARRY_**.

Louis guesses he didn't have the tag yet last week because it was probably one of his first shifts, taking the fact that Louis’s never seen him here before into consideration. The name fits him though, and Louis repeats it in his head a few times.

"I've got a big night tonight," Louis says casually as _Harry_ grabs the box to scan.

"Seems like it," Harry smiles, not seeming to take notice of the box at all which isn't acceptable.

"Yeah, uh are you sure that scanned? I didn't hear the beep," Louis asks.

Harry looks at him with a slightly confused expression but he picks the box back up and rescans it, looking at the screen on the register.

"I’m pretty sure it scanned," Harry tells him carefully. "I mean, it shows up on my screen so."

"What's it say exactly? Just to be sure," Louis asks, desperately dragging this on.

"Uh, it says TROJAN XL, and I'm pretty sure that's what they are, right?" Harry replies, biting on his bottom lip.

"Trojan _XL_ , ok yeah, that's right," Louis confirms, putting emphasis on the size. "Sorry about that, guess I'm just a bit tired."

"Well, don't fall asleep too soon," Harry says with a grin but it falters when Louis scrunches his eyebrows. "You know, so you get the chance to use the condoms and everything, I mean. Uh, sorry, I was trying to-"

"Oh, yeah! I get what you mean, I'm just- yeah," Louis says awkwardly and laughs even though there's nothing funny.

Harry nods wearily and places the box back in the bag. Since he's already blown any chance he had today, Louis doesn't even let him say the price before he's pulling out his card and swiping it, waiting patiently as Harry rips the receipt and puts it in the bag.

"Have a great night!" Harry says to him in his dumb cheerful voice with a dumb perma-smile.

"Yeah, you too, Harry," Louis sighs, grabbing the bag vigorously and going to walk out of the store.

"Wait! What's your name?" Harry calls out to him just as he gets to the front doors. He sounds as if he’s not sure he’s supposed to be asking the question, like a kid asking his parents what a blow job is.

Louis turns around and there's a spark of hope in his chest as he answers, "I'm Louis."

Harry nods. "Have a great night then, Louis."

Louis is the one who smiles this time and waves one last time before heading outside and back to his car.  The drive home takes too long and Louis needs to talk about what just happened with someone in the next five minutes or his brain might explode. As soon as he gets in the door to his flat, he calls out for Zayn and quickly finds him painting in his bedroom.

"I know his naaaame!" He says brightly, going over to Zayn and hitting his back repeatedly like a drum.

"What is it, and stop hitting my back before I swipe the brush across your face. You're messing me up," Zayn tells him, still trying to finish the part he's working on.

“It’s Harry and it really fits him, don’t you think? Curly hair and whatnot it just seems somewhat ironic,” Louis rambles out. “Also, your plan didn’t work, thank you very much.”

“Mhm and why didn’t it work exactly?” Zayn asks, finally setting his brush down and wiping his hands on his jeans as he turns to face Louis.

“Well, in short, he didn’t seem to be very interested in big dicks,” Louis frowns.

“That’s good though, because now he won’t be disappointed when you guys sleep together,” Zayn says with a grin. It takes Louis a moment to understand what he means but when he does, he huffs and adds it to Zayn’s tab that he’s building up quite quickly.

-

“Round two, here we go.”

Louis gives himself a mental pep talk as he pulls up to the market in his car, stepping out to check his reflection in the driver’s window. His hair is long and pushed back perfectly, his face is clear with only a bit of stubble, and his biceps are looking exceptionally toned.

The thing he pays the most attention too is how his abs look in the crop top he’s got on. 

It’s deep red, cut off an inch or so above his belly button. It’s made from an old shirt that Zayn spilt paint on a short while back. Louis found it sitting on Zayn’s dresser and it was as if he had an epiphany of some sort.

What matters most about it is that it shows him off perfectly. Louis’s particularly proud of having such a curvaceous figure and he’ll take any opportunity he can to show it off. Tonight, this shirt gives full view of the curve of his back and flat stomach all to impress just one person.

A minute later he decides he looks good enough to seduce a cute boy so he heads inside, going to a random aisle and grabbing the first thing he sees. He glances down at what he grabbed from the shelf and it turns out to be a banana bread box with a small banana-centered recipe book attached to it. With a shrug, he strides back to the front of the store, preparing himself to not fuck anything up this time.

“Hi, Harry,” he says sweetly to Harry who’s got his eyes glued to his phone screen.

Tonight he’s got on a purple sweater below his apron and the sleeves are cuffed just above his wrists, showing off some of his smaller, doodle-looking tattoos. Hs hair’s also pushed back into a floral headscarf and, although Louis has never been one for hats other than beanies or accessories in general, he can admit that it looks great on the boy.

When Harry looks up at him, Louis can literally see his eyes widen and his throat bump with a gulp as he takes in his outfit choice. “Hello, Louis. I like your, um, shirt. I think.”

“You think it’s a shirt or you think you like it?” Louis teases with a sinister smirk.

“No, I definitely like it, I’m just not sure about the shirt thing,” Harry confirms, eyes darting everywhere except Louis’ torso. “I’ve never seen something like that before so you know, just wanted to be safe. It’s nice, though.”

“Well thank you,” Louis smiles.

He waits patiently as Harry scans the box but he gets a bit confused when Harry stops mid-scan and makes an interested noise in the back on his throat. The box looks so small in his abnormally large hands that it’s almost comical.

“Something wrong?” Louis asks with genuine curiosity.

Harry shakes his head and grins, swiping it across and placing it into a plastic bag. “I have a weird obsession with bananas. I mean, I’m not exactly _obsessed_ with them, that’d be creepy, but I eat them a lot. They’re my favorite food basically. And I got a little distracted by the book attached to the back of it, sorry.”

Louis instantly smiles and thinks about it for a second before making a quick last minute decision. 

“You can have the book if you want. I can’t cook for shit so it wouldn’t get much use if I kept it anyways,” he offers with a shrug. 

“Really? I mean, we don’t really know each other or anything..” Harry says like he really wants the book but doesn’t want to seem like an inconvenience. 

“Well, fine. Can we make a deal?” Louis asks and Harry nods his head. “Great. Now, if I give you the book, could you give me your number?”

He watches as Harry pull his lip in and hums. “Seems like a fair trade considering you possibly have the best body I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something considering I know models. Female ones, but details details.”

Something inside of Louis jumps and he wants to reach out and kiss Harry straight on the lips, hard and wonderful. It’s starting to seem like the only way to Louis Tomlinson’s heart is to compliment him.

“You’re definitely gonna have to let me see what’s under that sweater someday, now,” Louis tells him, laughing softly.

“Don’t worry, I will. And by the way, your total is five thirteen,” Harry says.

Louis reaches into his pocket and pulls out his card, going through the typical process of paying for the item. Once he’s officially checked out, he hands his phone over to Harry with the ‘new contact’ page already open.

Harry understands and takes the phone, typing in his information and sticking his tongue out to take a picture for his contact. He gives the phone back to Louis with a glint in his eye.

“I hope you don’t mind that I replied to that Zayn guy’s text,” he says with a slight grin.

On reflex, Louis looks back at his phone and opens up messages to see what exactly he wrote out to Zayn.

**_From zaaayyynnn:_ ** _check out boy interested yet?? ;)_

**_To zaaayyynnn:_ ** _Definitely. I won him over with my hot body and banana book._

As he reads, another text comes in.

**_From zaaayyynnn:_ ** _i have a feeling ur not louis, but thats Cool_

“God, now I’m going to have to explain it all to him and it’s going to take forever,” Louis groans.

“How long does it take for you to say ‘he liked my shirt, i gave him a book, and he gave me his number’?” Harry asks smugly.

“It’s going to take an extremely long amount of time, thank you very much. Zayn likes to interrogate me whenever I have a new boy interest,” Louis explains.

“Well, better get home then. Time’s a’wastin,” Harry says and then starts laughing at himself. “Never let me say that again.”

“Will do,” Louis promises. “Now I think I am gonna get going, but I’ll text you in five minutes, ok?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Harry replies with a soft smile.

Then, Louis remember his end of the deal. He grabs the banana bread box from the shopping bag and tears the plastic wrapping off from around it, freeing the recipe book. He holds it out to Harry and let’s him take it.

“Can’t believe you almost let me forget that!”

“It slipped my mind,” Harry shrugs. “But thank you! I’ll bring you homemade banana things the next time I see you.”

“That sounds.. disgusting, actually. But I’ll still eat whatever it is and lie about it being delicious.”

“Sparing my feelings, how sweet of you.” Harry places a hand over his heart and Louis scoffs.

“Goodbye now!”

“Goooodbyyeee,” Harry sing songs and waves.

With a final wave and glance, Louis leaves the store and goes back to the flat for at least an hour of questions and prodding from his dearest friend Zayn.

-

“Louis, don’t you think you’re becoming a bit, I don’t know, _obsessed_ with Harry?” Zayn asks one day while they’re sitting on the couch trying to watch a movie.

“Texting him all the time isn’t being obsessed,” Louis says as he continues to type out a message to Harry.

"You've been texting him nonstop for two weeks straight. You're texting him _right now,_ " Zayn says.

"I've been paying attention to the movie, don't worry," Louis responds, waving Zayn off with one hand.

"What's happened so far then?" Zayn asks, challenging Louis.

"The guy was living a crappy life then he met the girl and by this point they're probably in the middle of some ridiculous argument that's threatening their relationship, but in the next thirty minutes they'll apologize and become a happier and snappier couple than they were before," Louis answer feeling strong about his prediction.

"You do know that we're watching The Avengers, right?" And Zayn's got a point there.

"That's what I said."

Zayn looks at him with an unreadable expression and sighs, grabbing the phone from his hands and stuffing it in his pants. Before Louis can try to take it back, he stands up and runs into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

"Give me my fucking phone back you dick!" Louis yells as he makes his way over to the bathroom.

"I'm just gonna talk to Harry for a second, hold on please," Zayn calls out innocently meaning that whatever he's doing is the complete opposite of innocent.

Louis has been around Zayn long enough to know that their minds are wired almost exactly the same and whatever Louis would do with Zayn's phone is probably exactly what Zayn's doing with his right now.

"Don't say anything to him, Zayn, or I swear I will cover all of your underwear with the hottest chili powder I can find," Louis threatens, banging on the door now.

"That's nice!" Zayn doesn't open the door and ignores the rest of Louis' threats to do and say various things to various objects and people.

Eventually Louis tires himself out and slumps back against the door, refusing to leave until Zayn comes out. It's about ten minutes later when the door behind him suddenly pulls open and he's falling backwards right into Zayn.

"Here's your phone back," Zayn says with a mischievous smirk. "Oh, and you might want to pick out a nice outfit for your date this Friday. You’re going out for ice cream.”

That’s when Louis stiffens and glares at him. “You asked him on a _date_? Why would you do that without consulting me first?”

“Because I know you’ve been wanting to ask him out since the first time you saw him- I’m not that oblivious. I just sped up the whole process and got it out of the way rather than waiting for you to form a plan for how to just hook up with him,” Zayn says and it actually makes sense.

“Alright, so I’ve got a date. And we’re getting ice cream. And he thinks I’m the one who suggested it, not you.” Louis says it nicely, more calm now that the initial shock has passed.

“That would all be correct, yes. You catch on quickly, Tomlinson,” Zayn teases.

Louis smirks then fredo kisses Zayn, running back over to the couch while Zayn grumbles on behind him about how disgusting he is.

-

It’s Friday afternoon and Louis is sitting in the ice cream shop by himself waiting for Harry to arrive. The place is nice with it’s light pink walls and other pastel colored decor. There’s lots of families and couples and groups of teenage girls scattered across the tables, and at the moment he feels kind of out of place and silently wishes Harry would hurry up and get here already.

He finds an empty seat and sits down, looking around and memorizing the details of the place for no reason at all. Every time the door opens there’s a bell and every time the bell rings, Louis looks over in hopes of seeing a bundle of curls and a tall lanky boy striding in, but it never is. So far it’s just been more teenage girls little kids with their parents.

After about thirty minutes of waiting, Louis’ stomach sinks because Harry still hasn’t shown up and he won’t even reply to any texts. He’s just about to get up and leave when the bell rings again and sure enough, there’s the bunch of curls he’s been hoping to see the whole time.

“Shit, I’m so sorry I’m late,” he rushes out as he gets over to the table Louis’s at. “I had to stay late at one of my classes and it took longer than I thought, then I got lost on the way here and my phone died so I couldn’t look up any directions or text you.”

“I was getting worried, but you’re here now and that’s all that matters,” Louis says with a reassuring smile.

“I still feel bad that I made you wait, how long’s it been, like thirty minutes or so? That’s a major dick move,” Harry continues to blabber out.

“Harry, seriously, it’s fine. You don’t have to apologize, I’m not disappointed or mad or anything.”

Harry finally nods and smiles apologetically. Louis grabs him by the bicep and pulls him over to the front counter where all of the ice cream flavors are.

They each stroll along the glass window, looking down at all of the colors and flavor names, pointing out which ones they think look the best. In the end, Harry gets a banana split and Louis gets two scoops of chocolate fudge in a cup.

Harry insists on paying because he feels so bad about being late and Louis makes him promise that if he lets him pay, he’ll drop the whole late thing and accept that Louis isn’t upset. He agrees and hands out a few bills for the deserts then guides them back over to the table in the back corner that Louis was sitting at earlier.

“What’s your last name?” Harry suddenly asks as he scoops some banana and vanilla ice cream into his mouth. Louis can’t help but be amused at the way Harry sticks his tongue fully out to take the bite.

“Tomlinson,” Louis answers, taking a scoop of his own ice cream. “How about you?”

“Styles, and don’t make a joke about my name being hairstyle,” Harry says, scrunching his nose up.

“Harry Styles seriously fits you, though. It’s weird,” Louis muses. “Not your name, I mean. The fact that it suits you.”

“Thank you?” Harry chuckles. 

The conversation dies out for a minute, giving them time to take a few more bites of their deserts. Harry doesn't let it last long until he's talking again. 

"So how desperate were you to win me over?" He asks with a grin.

"Desperate enough to wear a fucking _crop top_ out in public," Louis responds.

Harry nods his head in respect. "There were only, like, two other people in the store other than us but props for that. You wore it well."

"That's greatly appreciated," Louis smiles. "Now, about the condoms.."

"There's no way someone as small as you has a dick that big. I'm sorry, but it's just not possible," Harry interrupts.

"I wasn't going to say my dick was that bit you prick," Louis frowns. "You better live up to the expectations you're creating."

"Well, I guess we'll have to find out soon, then, won't we?" Harry cockily with raised eyebrows as he takes a big bite of banana and whipped cream.

Louis is gone for this boy.

Then Harry grabs the cherry off the top and sucks it into his mouth, pulling the steak out slowly, teasingly. 

Louis is so, _so_ fucking gone for this boy.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!
> 
> if you want to talk to me i'm strong on ao3, @kiiam on twitter, louwie on tumblr


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